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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582028">The Free Tree</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmegaTerminus/pseuds/Key%20Lime'>Key Lime (OmegaTerminus)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A very hissy tree, Character Study, Gen, Gods, Original Character(s), Plants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:22:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,546</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmegaTerminus/pseuds/Key%20Lime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A young nature god is born and contemplates the world around him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Free Tree</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello! This is a giftfic written several years back in our original universe, written by me (Key Lime) as a gift for Cherry. Pan is theirs, and Oreius is mine. Hope you all enjoy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was alive.</p><p>And he was very, very hungry.</p><p>His home was comfy but he was very hungry. The light was food, and so he ate the light as much as he could.</p><p>The water that fell from the sky was also food, and so he drank that.</p><p>The soil had good food, too. Lots of iron and lots of other minerals! Just what a tiny little sprout like him needed to survive.</p><p>But he was always hungry.</p><p>So, so, hungry…</p>
<hr/><p>At one point, he got enough food that he found his thought capabilities had grown. He could also now see! Sunlight was so, so bright, but when the sunlight was gone, it was very dark. He didn’t like the dark all that much.</p><p>He didn’t know how he knew all of what he was thinking, yet, but he knew that he could see now, and that he was in some hollow thing. It was made of calcium. Calcium was good. Calcium was a mineral that he could use if he could just get it.</p><p>He could turn his body now, even if he couldn’t move from his spot, and he could look at himself and know that he was a little flower.</p><p>Were there other flowers around, he wondered? The hollow thing didn’t allow him to see all that much, though it let sunlight and water in. He was frustrated.</p>
<hr/><p>Another growth spell later, and he understood even more. His name was Pan. Why that was his name, he didn’t know, but he knew that it meant him.</p><p>Regardless of what his name was, Pan found that his ‘home’ of the hollow object – which he could now identify was the skull of some animal – was becoming much too small for him. Further testing found that he was able to uproot himself – quite literally – and wiggle his way out of the skull.</p><p>He fluttered his leaves for a moment and considered his surroundings. There was no one else around. No animals, no plants. There was nothing there but soil and bones and rotting flesh. It was like something violent and dangerous had happened here. Pan didn’t like it, so he decided that he was going to leave.</p><p>The flower walked along its roots. And walked. And walked. As far as he could see out of his eyes, there was still nothing there.</p><p>Pan had been walking for many, many days, only stopping to soak up sunlight, and drink from a few puddles that he had found on the ground. He was always hungry, but he was also very, very lonely.</p><p>A large body of water appeared in front of him, and curious, Pan walked towards it. He peered down into it, and his leaves fluttered with excitement.</p><p>It was a flower, just like him! It had medium green leaves just like him, and a pretty, pale blue head with two eyes. Pan rustled a greeting to the other flower, but for some reason, it didn’t reply back. Maybe it couldn’t hear him? Maybe he had to move closer? Pan stepped closer towards the other flower, as it did, and…</p><p>
  <em>Splash!</em>
</p><p>Pan scrambled out of the water, shivering and soaking wet and looking almost drowned. He did the closest thing that a flower could do to pouting.</p><p>There had been no other flower in that lake after all.</p>
<hr/><p>It had taken longer than the previous times, but he had grown further, and had found that he had shifted his shape into that of a tree, with pale green leaves that almost glowed blue, and a pale white trunk. By now, Pan had managed to find other plants, but they never spoke to him when he greeted them. But that was alright.</p><p>He was different from the other plants. While he resembled a plant, he was not a plant himself. He was a force of nature, what other plants derived themselves from. Born in the middle of a bloody war – for what else could that field of decomposing bodies have been? – he was a force that was supposed to bring peace and life.</p><p>Plants represented life, which was why his form was thus.</p><p>Pan found that he rather liked being a tree. He’d settled down in a nice field with other plants that gave him plenty of sunlight and water, and ruminated. There were also other small animals around, and while they weren’t as smart as he was, it was nice to not be alone.</p><p>Being a force of nature, knowledge would come to him as his tree form grew and grew. He was Pan, the God of Peace and Life, and he had been born from the pieces of two Gods that had gone through a rather violent and bloody war.</p><p>His mother was Dana, Goddess of Knowledge. He knew what she looked like, but he wasn’t sure where to find her. One day, perhaps he would get the chance to meet her. Knowledge was good. He enjoyed learning new things, as he had been his whole life.</p><p>His mommy was smart.</p><p>His father was Oreius, the God of War and (oddly enough) Intimacy. He also knew what he looked like, and he made a decision to avoid him. Oreius caused war. War was the exact opposite of peace, and he didn’t like anything that opposed peace.</p><p>His daddy was stupid.</p><p>He wanted to whack daddy on the head with his branches.</p>
<hr/><p>His tree form had grown, and grown, and grown, and he had observed many things. Some of those things were the dominant species’ on the planet. There were mainly humans, but there were also other species, such as elves and Cambrian – the names for them all came to his head as he thought about them.</p><p>By cautiously testing his magic, Pan had managed to take on a form similar to them; he had fluffy, pale blue hair, pale green eyes, and pale skin that was almost pure white.</p><p>Pan didn’t look all that different than he had as a flower or a tree in color, but now he blended in better with the other species, and could speak and use them to learn. He introduced himself by name, of course. He was a god, which meant that he had to spread knowledge of himself if he wanted to be known amongst them.</p><p>But most importantly, he was able to learn about other gods from these mortal species, as well as their capabilities.</p><p>He would file all the knowledge that he got away for later. He was powerful, he was brimming with energy, and he needed to siphon it out, to make things.</p><p>He used his magic to make his own species – the other gods had their own species, why shouldn’t he? He would call them dryads; they were sapient trees that could shapeshift, just like him, but with only a fraction of the magical powers that he had. But that was okay. They were trees. The best trees.</p><p>But he was the most perfect tree.</p><p>He planted more trees like him, but not sapient. If he was going to make this new location his home, he had to make it comfortable for himself. And they were magical, and the fruits that they bore were very healthy for mortals.</p>
<hr/><p>With a little magic, and with a little luck, Pan had managed to create a small, but thriving village. Inspired by all of the humans and dryads and other species that had come to leave here, he had named the village Arcadia. It was notable throughout the lands for being one of the healthiest cities to live in, and it had attracted the attention of several holy beings.</p><p>Much to Pan’s irritation, Oreius was one of the gods that it had attracted. Pan had left the village at the time and had been observing the boundaries, when he had spotted the pastel-haired blond with the deep red eyes observing him.</p><p>The urge to give Oreius a piece of his mind won against his more rational mind (the one that told him that antagonizing an older god was <em>not</em> a good idea) and Pan marched up to Oreius, his tiny little frame set with determination, and despite that Oreius was much taller than him, he <em>glared </em>up at him.</p><p>“Stop causing war! That’s not a nice thing to do!”</p><p>The incredulous look on Oreius’s face only served to make Pan bristle even more, and he stamped his foot in irritation.</p><p>“I mean it, Oreius!”</p><p>“Who are you to tell me what to do, little plant?” Oreius asked him, his voice dripping with barely concealed amusement.</p><p>“My name is Pan! I’m the God of Peace and Life and you’re doing things that I don’t like!”</p><p>Oreius continued to give him that incredulous look, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “…I wouldn’t worry, little plant.” He patted him on the head, almost condescendingly, and Pan wanted to strangle him with his own stupid, long blond hair.</p><p>“Then get out of here! This is <em>my</em> territory! I don’t want anyone else in it!”</p><p>This time, Oreius really <em>did</em> let out a bark of laughter, and Pan would have tackled him had Oreius not disappeared then and there. He stared at where the older god had been, and scowled.</p><p>Stupid daddy.</p>
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